Gotham City Stories: Annals Of the Batman
by Ca11umism
Summary: My own Batman Continuity. Starting a year after the rise of the Batman, this is a series based on the early years of Batman's career as Gotham's Dark Knight Detective. Features some original Villain origins.
1. PrologueEnter the Black Mask Part 1

**A/N:** _HELLO!_ _I started this story a while back under the title 'Chronicle of the Bat' but it fell apart on me. Now, I'm back and hoping to finish it properly. Thanks for reading, and please, find it in your heart to review?_ **DANKS.**

_I' don't own Batman or lay claim to him._

**GOTHAM CITY STORIES: ANNALS OF THE BATMAN.**

**CHAPTER 1:**

"I demand satisfaction sir!,"

The voice of a black haired boy with crystal blue eyes echoed throughout the quiet streets of Gotham city.

He stood upon the steps of an old apartment building, dressed very sharply in a dark two piece suit and red tie, one arm outstretched, as if he held a rapier, the other raised flamboyantly behind his head.

The "satisfaction" he demanded was from a man in his late thirties, the same dark hair as the boy, but with hazel eyes and dressed in a tailored tuxedo, who walked side by side with a flawlessly skinned, brown haired woman in a red dress, a pair of gloves in her hand and the man's black trench coat draped over her slim shoulders.

"My dear sir," the woman said, emulating a bad southern accent, raising her hand to her forehead dramatically. "Please, I beg of you, rescue me from this horrid man!"

The boy grinned widely, running down the steps and leaping up onto a overturned garbage can, assuming the same stance as he had held on the steps.

"Don't you worry M'lady!...I shall rescue you from this vile fiend!" he began waving his outstretched arm, brandishing his invisible weapon.

"Bruce, quiet down," the man chuckled. "You'll wake up everyone on the street!"

The woman took the man's arm in hers. "Oh, Thomas, let him have his fun"

The three continued down the cracked concrete path, Bruce leaping around, waving his hands like a mad man, climbing bus benches and fire hydrants, and occasionally blurting out heroic comments and threatening his father with his non-existent sword.

They reached a corner and stopped, where Thomas began looking around at the street signs.

"What's wrong?," his wife said, looking up at him, taking notice of a sudden change in the man's demeanor.

"I, I think we took a wrong turn back there somewhere..." he smiled to his wife, before nervously looking around again. "We'll have to go back, I think it's two blocks over"

"What's gotten you so anxious?," she said, rubbing her hand on Thomas's forearm, trying to make him feel better. "Thomas?"

"I just don't think this is a part of town I want Bruce to see, Martha. I came here for work a while back and there are people here he shouldn't be around"

Thomas turned Martha around as she beckoned for their son.

"Bruce?, Bruce come here sweetheart," The young boy dropped off the edge of the bench he was standing on and ran into his mother's outstretched arms.

"Thomas," she said.

"Just keep close, alright?, stay together and move quickly."

The group took hurried steps down the two blocks, Thomas keeping a tight grip on both his son and wife, until he turned them down a street that lead through the theater district, where the group had just come to see a charity performance of "The Mark Of Zorro!" for the Wayne foundation, then a half dozen more until they reached Gotham square.

The neon lights and open space made Thomas calm down and release the grip on his son's shoulder a little. He still kept looking around, but it was only to check down the alleyways that they passed, in case someone was hiding up a fire escape, or when a car backfired on the other side of the street.

He led his wife and son over the road and passed a hotdog stand, where Bruce had asked for one, but was hurried along before the vendor could even fish one out of his steamer.

The three made it to a row of cabs that took off just as they reached them, to which Thomas cursed loudly, and began to look for any others in the vicinity, looking up one way to an empty street, and then the other to an empty street with a few stray cats purring on corner.

"Dad?" Bruce tugged on Thomas's sleeve and pointed down an alley, to a very busy street on the other side where the yellow of the cabs could be seen blurring past.

"Nice find Bruce, alright, we'll try down there" he took his wife and son by the hands and began leading them down the grime covered alley with haste, still checking out the fire escapes as they walked underneath, and turning his head for every suspicious sound he heard.

Reaching the other end of the alley, Thomas let go of his wife and son and walked out to the curb, where he stuck out his arm to hail a taxi.

"There's no one here Dad, let's go back to the theater" Bruce said, looking back down the dank alley they had just exited.

"No Bruce, I' rather we stay here," he looked over his shoulder to his son, who was looking him straight in the eye. "There's a better chance of catching a cab in the light" Thomas smiled awkwardly, not wanting his son to see his nervousness.

"Dad!," Thomas turned to see his son pointing down the alley again, this time to see a cab that had just stopped on the corner. "I'll catch it!" The boy started sprinting down the down the alley, seeing two men climb out and fumble in their pockets for money.

"BRUCE?" Martha cried, reaching out for the boy as he took off.

"BRUCE!," Thomas yelled, running into the alley after his son. "SON, COME BACK HERE!"

Bruce didn't stop, in fact he sped up, ignoring his father's shouting down the alley, and his mother's pleas as she followed him.

"I CAN CATCH IT DAD!," Bruce said, turning halfway around as he sprinted, looking to his father as he followed him. "DON'T WORRY, JUST GET MOM!.."

He started to turn back, still sprinting as fast as he could, but turned into a overturned shopping cart, his knees colliding with the steel frame and sending the child face first into the broken concrete.

"BRUCE!,"Thomas began sprinting now, making it to his grounded, bawling son and lifting the boy up from a small pool of blood that had formed beneath his face.

"Dammit son," the man said, checking a large gash on Bruce's left eyebrow. "I told you to stop, see this is what happens when you don't listen"

Bruce picked up that his father was angry at him, and began crying even more. "I'm s..sorry dad, I thought I co-could catch it." Thomas looked out of the alley to see an empty space where the taxi was parked moments before.

"That's alright Bruce, I don't blame you,"

"Bruce! Oh sweetie, are you okay?" Martha reached them and bent down to hug her son, and checked the cut that had begun to steadily seep a thin stream of blood down his face.

Bruce nodded, wrapping his arms around his father, who lifted him up into his arms.

"Come on Bruce, let's get you home"

"T..Thomas," the man and his son looked up to see Martha looking up the alley to a man, not ten feet away, half hidden in the shadows, clad in a brown leather jacket and faded blue jeans.

"Stand up," the voice was coarse, raspy like that of a heavy smoker.

Thomas let Bruce down and stood up, putting himself between his wife and the stranger.

"Thomas, he has a gun," Martha whispered, gripping Thomas's forearm tightly.

The man walked out of the darkness, into the light of an over head neon sign, which revealed a horrible face.

His skin was pale, and he had cracked lips that were so thin and chapped they seemed to blend in with his face perfectly. His hair was colored a faded brown, very greasy, and thinning a little on top. When the man smiled, it showed a series of brown and yellow teeth. The sight of which made Bruce grab hold on to his mother.

"Money, now," the man said, raising a small revolver.

Thomas raised his hands in a non-threatening way. "Okay, okay, there's no need for the gun, here," Thomas reached into his jacket, beginning to slowly take out his wallet, which the man snatched immediately.

"And the watch," the mugger pointed the hand which held Thomas's wallet to his left wrist.

Thomas nodded, and began slowly un-clasping the golden watch band, not taking his eyes off the hideous man.

"You," The gunman pointed to Martha, who's eyes went wide with fear, and started to shake.

"The pearls," the man said, aiming the gun at the priceless Wayne family heirloom that hung around her neck.

"Woah,"Thomas stood between them again, handing out his watch, which the man took. "That watch there is worth fifteen thousand, there's roughly a thousand in my wallet as well, that's enough okay?"

The man shook his head, raising the gun to Thomas's face. "I want the pearls,"

He pushed Thomas out the way, and grabbed at Martha's neck with his gun hand.

She struggled for a moment, trying to slap away the man's hand, when Bruce screamed out.

"GET OFF OF HER," The boy grabbed his mother's attacker by the arm, doing his best to pull the man off of his mother, and started kicking at random intervals.

"Get offa me kid!," the man began shaking both his arms, one fighting with the two Wayne's.

"BAMM!"

The deafening sound of a gunshot rung out, echoing off the graffitied walls.

All three froze, with Bruce and the man looking to Martha, who stood for a moment with shock in her face, then fell backward onto the concrete, silent.

"Mom?...MOM!," Bruce screamed, before starting to punch the man, tears forming in his eyes. "GO AWAY...GET AWAY FROM US!" he began screaming, before the mugger swung out and hit him in the face with the butt of his revolver, knocking the child to the ground.

Bruce looked up, grasping his face, to the man cocking his gun and aiming it at Bruce, his brown eyes rife with fury.

"You little shi...Ughh!" Thomas appeared out of no where, his shoulder colliding with the man and bringing him to the ground, where the two began to wrestle over the weapon.

Bruce watched as his father struggled with the mugger, rolling around on the ground, before a second shot made Bruce tense.

"DAD?," Bruce said, seeing his father fall from his knees on to his side, and crawled over to him. "Dad?, dad get up," he said, whimpering over his father's lifeless body.

Bruce looked up to see the man who had just killed his parents running off down the alley, towards the end they'd come in from, and crash into a man as he turned the corner. He heard the mugger snap some comment at the man, then run out of sight. The man stood there for a second, stunned at the stranger's outburst then turned down the alley.

"Oh my god," the man gasped, starting up the alley to where a young boy held his father's lifeless body.

**0ooo-19 YEARS LATER-ooo0**

**ENTER: THE BLACK MASK! -PART 1.**

The rooftop of the Sionis Meatpacking building was far quieter than he'd assumed. Bruce Wayne, under the guise of the Batman, leapt from building to building with a grace normally reserved for wildcats and other spry beasts.

For over a year, Bruce had been doing this. Every night, every rooftop, from the docks in East Gotham, to the highrise corporate buildings in the West. It was fitting, so he thought, it was necessary.

At first, it was really only to take out the gangs that plagued Gotham, the ones who used bribery and intimidation to harm his late father's dream to make Gotham a clean city, but since then it had become somewhat of a secret life for him. News spread quickly of the six foot Bat that lived in the shadows of Gotham's streets, that would viciously maim anyone that stood in his way, that could fly.

But in truth, it was all technology and human skill that made him what he was. The 'flying' was all the work of a gas propelled grappling gun, one which a German inventor had aided him in creating only a few years ago. The 'maiming' was just a decade's worth of training in martial arts, Brazilian Jiu jitsu, Aikido, Hapkido, Krav Maga. And the 'living in Gotham's shadows?', that was the eight months in Okinawa learning from a frail old man named Kirigi, who Bruce had heard was the last 'ninja' in the world.

Of course, there were other skills he'd picked up since his nineteenth birthday, when he'd decided to leave Princeton and travel the world. A man named Henri Ducard had taught him to track wild animals in the South of France, a chemist in Austria had spent nearly eight months teaching Bruce to memorize the periodic table among other things. But they all came together well, making Bruce who he was now.

As for the 'Batman' moniker?, well, that came about by total coincidence.

Less than a month after Bruce returned from his trip, there was a night where he'd taken refuge in his late father's study. It had been raining, he remembered, and his butler Alfred had long since gone to bed. He was looking over a police report he'd managed to secure about the illegal dealings of a man named Roman Sionis, an old primary school friend of Bruce's. Sionis had been named in a lawsuit by a disgruntled banker, Warren White, that claimed Sionis' meatpacking company was run on fear and backroom dealings.

Bruce had tried to piece the evidence together, hoping to discover if the banker's accusations were correct, when he was torn from his stupor by the sound of breaking glass. A bat had found it's way into the study through the top window. It sent chills down his spine, memories of the fear he'd had of them when he was a child filled his mind. It was then it hit him, and then he'd taken that name, choosing to utilize what once tormented him to torment those whose goals were to harm his city.

Ironically, that was why he was here in the industry district tonight tonight, traversing the many vents and smoke-chutes upon the meatpacking plant's roof. He'd been following the widely publicized legal battle between Roman Sionis and his former banker, who'd been in a government sponsored police custody while the trials went on.

The last report Bruce had gotten his hands on revealed that Sionis kept most of his papers in a secret vault within his office. The police had scoured the place from top to bottom and found naught, which only gave Sionis' lawyer a better case, and made the prosecutor retract himself from the case and skip town. This made Bruce uneasy, and gave him more and more motive to do what he'd come to do tonight.

A skylight sat above Sionis's office. Batman took a miniscule band-saw from one of the many pockets which laced the gold plated belt he wore around his waist and used it to split the fiberglass pane from it's steel base, opening up the office to him. Any light of the city around him was extinguished as he silently dropped into the room, listening any sign that he wasn't alone. A breath, a creak of a chair, anything.

When he was sure he was the only one there, he reached for another one of his belt's pockets. From this one he took a monocular like device,  
which he placed to his eye and began to twist. The sight turned from pitch black to a transparent blue. With his spare hand, he pressed the ear of his cowl and spoke. "Alfred," he spoke in a quiet, stern voice. "Is the feed coming through?"

"Aye ser," came a voice from nowhere. "Say what you will about Sionis' personal life, but he does have good taste"

He didn't acknowledge the joke. "Activate the Bat-computer's fingerprint revealing software" a second past, then the transparent blue room was suddenly covered in dozens of miniscule orange markings. Batman panned over the office, pausing for a moment every now and then for the Bat-computer's software to fully register the room.

It was when he paused while facing a solid wall that Alfred's voice sounded in his ear again. "There ser, Sionis' fingerprints appear on that wall and that wall only" Batman twisted the monocle again and the room went black.

"Thank-you Alfred. I'll send word when I've found it"

"As you wish ser"

He pressed his ear again, deactivating the communicator, and then placed his hands to the wall. Though it was dark, Batman could still make out a noticeable groove with the wall, a quarter inch concave over an area of less than a foot. He rapped his gloved knuckles on the plaster in a few places, making certain he had the right spot, then pulled out his saw and carved a square through the plaster.

Taking the plaster from the wall, a thick doored iron safe was revealed, built into the building's brickwork. It was a combination lock, made in the late seventies. 'Simple,' Batman thought with a smirk. Once again, he took the tiny bandsaw and went to work at the hinges on the safe's door. It was only a few moments before the safe was open to him. He carefully placed the door on the floor and looked inside.

A mound of papers sat on the lower shelf. He took them and began flipping through them, using his monocle's camera function to take pictures to send to Alfred. "Alfred, what do you make of this?," he spoke to his butler over the communicator. "It seems White is correct in his claims"

"Aye ser. Mister Sionis does seem to be in deep with some of Gotham's worst"

The files showed that Sionis had been dealing with everyone, from a corrupt detective named Bullock, to Sal Maroni, the head of Gotham's Maroni crime syndicate. Millions of dollars in bribes to judges and other government officials. "He's been at this for years,"

"I'm sure the district attorney's office would be happy to hear about this," Alfred said. "The new D A would get quite the kick out of it"

Batman Agreed. "You're right. Write up a report and send it in tomorrow anonymously"

"As you wish, Master Bruce"

Placing the papers back, Batman looked at the top shelf. Stacks upon stacks of hundred dollars bills made up a pile within the the safe. He took the top stack and flipped through them. "Alfred?, send these serial numbers through the treasury databanks"

He recited a few for his accomplice. "They're non-existent ser, which means they're..."

"...Counterfeit"

"Precisely"

Batman nodded to himself. "Very well. Make reference of it in the report and send it i..." A sound from outside made him stop in his tracks, footsteps in the meat-plant beneath him.

Without a second to waste, he placed the bills back in the safe, lifted the door up and put it in place. He used a thin switch to apply a slight glue to the sawn hinges, putting them in place. It wouldn't let the safe work, but if everything went well, the police would be in here by the morning. He did the same with the square of plaster, gluing it back into the wall. It wasn't perfect, but the glue was the same color as the wall, making it indistinguishable to anyone who glanced at it. But perhaps not to those who looked closely for very long.

The footsteps grew louder, and with only a second to spare, Batman leapt up onto Sionis' desk and again, pulling himself through the skylight and onto the roof just as the door opened. He didn't want to waste time, so without looking, he sprinted off across the roof and, with the use of his grappling gun, flew off into the night.

**NEXT TIME: ENTER THE BLACK MASK PART 2**


	2. Enter the Black Mask part 2:

**ENTER THE BLACK MASK-PART 2: A DARK KNIGHT FOR WARREN WHITE.**

"What's the Mask want with this guy anyway?," the voice of one of two rather scruffy looking men standing by a car outside 'SIONIS MEAT PACKING CO.' echoed throughout the empty parking lot. With his thinning brown hair, beady, slitted eyes and thin, pointy face, he looked somewhat like a a rat.

Every few moments he took a drag from his hand rolled cigarette, blowing the smoke out through a set yellowed teeth, pacing up and down on the blacktop out of nervousness.

The second man, who leant casually against the car, shrugged. "No clue Des," his accent was that of a South Bostonite. He was much better looking than the other man, with dirty blonde hair, a pair of grey blue eyes, and a strong jawline, but not so much as that he would be called handsome. "Just told us to pick him up, and I'm not going to go question Mask when he asks me to do something."

Des, the smoker, took another drag from his cigarette. The small cinders in the tip were the only real illumination in the parking lot, the next best thing being a few street lamps across the street.

"You don't think he's gonna do anything to him?," Des asked, ceasing his pacing and beginning to tap his foot, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. He wiped his hooked nose with the back on his hand before taking another drag. "Think he'll make us watch?"

"I don't know. Look, I don't really wanna know anything about Mask's business okay?. I just do my bit and try and stay outta his way, I don't wanna end up like the guy inside." the leaning man said, putting his hands into the pockets of his old jacket-a brown leather bomber with a zip down the front.

Fifteen minutes later an expensive looking black sedan pulled off the street and into the parking lot. Des had just finished his third cigarette and was stomping out the butt when the car stopped right next to them. The passenger door opened and a man in a jet black suit hopped out, his face covered by a black ski-mask. He gave the two men a brief glance before walking to the rear door and pulling it open.

"We're here Mister Mask" he said as a man dressed in a white designer suit stepped out, buttoning up his matching jacket over a black dress shirt as he did so. The leaning man stood up from against the car and Des took his place next to him, looking at the man with a slightly shocked look on his face.

"What are you looking at?" the man said in a deep, anger fueled voice.

Des couldn't help but be a little uncomfortable looking at him. His face was covered by some sort of black leather mask that had been carefully cut to fit perfectly over the contours of his face. You couldn't see any eyes, they were covered by some kind of lenses, but that just made him more intimidating. " Mister Mask sir...I just-"

"Shut the fuck up." Des closed his mouth and looked down at his old sneakers.

"Pike, is he here?" the brown jacket wearing man nodded.

"Yes sir Mister Mask...strung him up like ya' asked." he said, retrieving a ski-mask from the inside of his coat and pulling it over his face.

Mask nodded and began towards the large double doors of the building, tailed closely by his bodyguard with Pike following them. "Good, You tell your boy here that if he ever looks at me again I'll tear his fucking eyes out with a pair of pliers." Des looked up in shock, then over to Pike, who just shrugged back to him and indicated to put on his mask.

Pike and Des ran ahead and pulled open the double doors for Mask and his guard as they approached the building, then followed them through the many aisles of conveyor belts and meat grinding machines to another double door, which the two opened again for Mask and his guard. Inside they found another half dozen of the mask wearing men surrounding a frail looking man, who'd been hung up by his wrists like a fresh cow carcass from one of the meat hooks.

Mask took off his suit jacket and handed it to his body guard, who folded it over his arm and stood back. "Hello there Warren," he said in a cold voice, not paying attention to the whimpers coming from the strung up man. "I'm pretty sure you know what you're here for," The Mask looked up at the man, who hadn't stopped whimpering, then, when he didn't get any answer, put one of his large hands under Warren's chin, and lifted his face to look the small man in the eyes.

"Well?," he still didn't get any answer. "Warren, I've known you for several years, and in that time, I would have liked to think that you and I have become friends,"

Warren whimpered again before opening his thin lipped mouth. "I didn't do it on purpose, Rome," Mask sighed, let Warren's face drop, then walked over to a nearby table, where a suitcase filled with various garden tools and other nasty looking devices had been set up.

"Well that's not what I've heard. But I want to hear it from your mouth, and it looks to me like the only way I'm going to get the truth from you is by my own means," Warren looked as if he was about to cry.

"Let's get started shall we?"

**0ooo0ooo0ooo0ooo0**

The call had come in over the police scanner within his cowl. An armed robbery not ten blocks from the Sionis meat plant. Five men, all armed, shot up an armoured truck in the middle of the street. Batman was going to call it a night after his break in at the meatplant, but this was the kind of thing he couldn't ignore, the whole reason he became the Batman.

With the aid of his grappling gun, he traversed the warehouses and various buildings in minutes, arriving on the scene to find a Gotham Second national bank van stationary in the middle of the street, one of the guards lying dead next to passenger side door. The other guard was on his knees between three masked men and a group of Gotham P.D's uniformed officers.

Batman swung down to a fire escape in the nearest alley to the truck. Using his monocle, he eyed the weapons the three visible men were carrying; an Ingram's mac 10 and two revolvers, Smith and Wesson by the looks of the barrels. The thief with the Ingram's was using the second guard as a shield, keeping the officers at bay.

Watching the surrounding area from his perch, he realised his usual tactic of dropping down on his prey was hindered by the fact that they were in the middle of the street; the only way above them was a lamp post that he wasn't sure could hold his two hundred and thirty pound frame. Though of course that wouldn't stop him. "Alfred?," he spoke over his cowl, "check the surrounding sewer grates for the street I'm on,"

_'Lucky day, Master Bruce,'_ the voice said, _'There are three, one in the alley beneath you,'_

He let himself smirk. In one swift movement, he'd scaled the railings and landed in the street, then found his way to the nearest sewer grate. With one hand he took the iron disc away from it's place and dropped into the sewer line, sprinting over and finding himself beneath the truck.

When he found his way up again, it was his luck that he found himself on the other side of the truck. He'd wasted far too much time finding his way around them, and he jumped out of the manhole and leapt up the truck's side. He could hear the thieves on the other side of the truck, pulling sacks of cash from the truck.

Now on the roof, Batman reached into one of his belt's many pouches and took out a handful of small grey pellets and cast them down into the center of the group. A small flash of white smoke burst into existence, bathing the three gunmen and their hostage in a thick haze. Batman dropped from the truck, landing in a crouch, and kicked at the nearest thief to him, taking out his leg and sending him to his back. The Ingram's wielder turned around in the haze, and began to fire blindly. Bullets riddled the armoured van's side and several stray shots connected with the third man, who screamed and fell against the truck.

Batman leapt up and winged a punch at the wildly firing thief, connecting with his head and sending him reeling. He dropped his gun and quickly recovered, throwing his own punch at Batman through the quickly thinning smoke. Batman ducked the punch came up under the man's arm, wrapped his hands around his head, and sprang up, his knee smashing into the thug's face, knocking him cold.

The policemen covered the distance between their squad cars and the truck in seconds. Two went towards the other men, helping the screaming man put pressure on his wound, and handcuffing the winded man before he could reclaim his weapon.

"Thanks Batman!," one of the other officers said as Batman handed over his third victim to them. "I didn't think Selkirk would have made it out alive if you hadn't come..."

"There were five men," Batman cut in. "Where are the other two?"

"They drove off just as we were getting here...I sent two units after them."

Batman nodded, then turned away. "Make sure that man gets to the hospital," he pointed to the whimpering man with a bullet wound in his shoulder. "He'll bleed out in less than ten minutes." And with that, the Batman took off into the night sky in search of more prey.

**0oooooo0ooo0ooo0o0**

Des felt like he was about to throw up.

He, along with the other eight mask wearing members of the Black Mask's gang, Pike included, had been forced to watch as Warren's face had been carved up and mutilated beyond recognition. The things Mask had done were horrifying. He'd Clipped his nostrils with a small pair of hedge clippers, which caused Warren to squeal as the cartilage in his nose was torn in half, used a thin knife to cut the very top of his eyelids, leaving the man with the need to keep blinking, otherwise blood would run over his brown eyes and sting horribly.

Mask had also had taken the knife to Warren's face, cutting various X shapes all over his cheeks and fore head, all the while talking about the past between the two men, talking in length about how they'd dined together, smoked cigars and laughed as friends. For some reason, the fact that Mask spoke so comfortably as he tortured Warren made Des more uncomfortable than just watching him do his work.

It took less than an hour, but the Black Mask still took his time with his 'fun'. When he was, or at least Des thought he was, finished, Mask pulled a chair out from next to the table and set it up next to Warren's squirming body. He stood up on it, and used the knife to cut the cords that held Warren up, leaving him to drop the foot and a half from his bonds, and into a slump on the cold floor.

"Now Warren," Mask said to the sobbing figure on the floor. "I'm going to give you a hypothetical," the mobster walked over to the table and dropped his knife, picking up an old rag as he did so. "Say you have a business partner. One you'd call a friend," Mask began wiping the quickly drying blood stains on his manicured hands. "You enjoy parties together...business meetings on expensive yachts with bikini models,"

Mask walked over to the chair again-still cleaning the blood off of his hands-and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. "Then one day, you discover that someone has been giving your business secrets to the pigs. Tell me Warren, how would you feel?," Warren gasped; Des wasn't sure that he was trying to speak or not, but Mask ignored him.

"I'd feel sad, betrayed, all that shit," Mask threw the rag down and rested his hands on his knees. "Now, how would you feel if your accountant for six years was the one doing such squealing?," Warren managed to make it up to his hands and look Mask in the face.

"I didn't want to Mask...I swear."

Mask shook his head. "No, see we have proof. I just want to hear it from your lips. Boys?," two of the masked men at the back of the room walked out, leaving Mask to pick at his nails for a moment, before returning. Each carried a large roll of carpet that they dropped on the ground and rolled over, revealing to Warren the shocked, lifeless faces of his secretary and bodyguard. "The three of us had a little game of twenty questions,"

Warren looked as if he was choking on his tongue. "Now Warren, I'm going to give you one chance. I'm not going to kill you, I just want to know. Do you admit you did it on your own volition?,"

Warren's lip began shaking. "Ye-yes, I'm so sorry," he tried to put his hand on Black Mask's knee, but the mobster slapped him away, shaking his head.

"I'm disappointed in you Warren," he said, standing up and walking over towards his bodyguard, taking his coat and throwing it over his wide shoulders. "I would have thought that after everything that we've been through, you would have had more respect for my business. Pike, cool him off."

Des felt Pike's elbow in his ribs, and he followed him over to where Warren knelt, a look of confusion on the man's mutilated face. The two took Warren under the armpits and lifted him up. "What are you doing?, you said you weren't going to kill me?" he began forcing against the two. Des had considered letting him go, but knew he'd get punished for it, and instead tightened his grip on the man.

Mask, who was heading towards the entrance, didn't even stop. "Yes, I said I wasn't going to kill you. Technically, it'll be the cold that will." he began laughing as Des and Pike opened the large freezer door at the very end of the room and threw Warren inside, where he slipped on the slick floor and fell over, screaming for mercy as the two closed the door on his ice tomb.

**0oo0oo0oo0oo0**

It was only five blocks away that Batman came upon the two fleeing thieves. As the officer had told him, two other police units were on their tail, sirens blaring.

He had to cut across several buildings to put himself ahead of them, then, taking the best chance, he leapt out over the street and came down on top of the car, his weight making the roof collapse. He barely had time to get a grip on the roof as the car veered to the right, but the three curved spikes he'd built into his gauntlet in order to protect himself against knives cut the thin metal and hooked into the roof, leaving him hanging off the side of the car.

"What the fu...?" he heard from inside. The passenger in the car pulled his own gun; he couldn't identify the make, and aimed it at Batman through the window, obviously with the intentions of blowing Bruce's brains out through the back of his cowl. Instead, Batman put his fist through the window and broke the gunner's nose, knocking him unconscious in the lap of the driver.

The driver screamed and veered again, this time to the left, sending Batman into a lamppost and the car into a building.

It was hazy for a moment, but he regained his composure. Batman could feel his left cheekbone was broken, and was almost certain he'd dislocated his shoulder, but that wouldn't stop him. He found his feet and approached the car. It's windshield had smashed in the crash and the driver was lying with his face pressed against the steering wheel, blood trickling down his brow.

Batman pulled open the door with his free hand and took the driver by the arm. "I'm...S-sorry," the man cried in a slurred voice; a concussion perhaps. "He t-told me he'd hurt my g-girlfriend if I didn't,"

"Who did?," Batman growled. His face hurt with each syllable, but he forced through it.

"T-the...Black-BLACK MASK!" the man went unconscious in Batman's grip as the two police cars that had been giving chase pulled up behind him and a crowd began to gather.

"Batman?," one of the officers called as he lay the man on the sidewalk. "Are you alright?,"

He didn't answer with words, instead he just nodded, took out his grappling gun, and took off into the night.


End file.
